Ships, Fogs, and Traveling Pairs: Plague Legend Migration in

Transcription

Ships, Fogs, and Traveling Pairs: Plague Legend Migration in Scandinavia
Author(s): Timothy R. Tangherlini
Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 101, No. 400 (Apr. - Jun., 1988), pp. 176-206
Published by: American Folklore Society
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TIMOTHY
R.
TANGHERLINI
Ships, Fogs, and Traveling Pairs
PlagueLegendMigrationin Scandinavia
This article examines the various forms the plague assumes in the legend
traditionsof Scandinavia. Eight new legend types are proposed in an effort to
expand the existing type-index to more adequatelydescribethe legend corpus.
Commonto all traditionsare legendsconcerningthe aftermathof theplague. The
legendsof Norway and Sweden oftenpresent the plague as a wanderingwoman
or as a pair of childrenwith a rake and broom. These legendsare nonexistent in
the Danish corpus. Instead, the Danish legends often present the plague as a
celestial phenomenon, primarily fog or mist. The forms the legends take are
possibly linkedto the areasof diseaseprovenance.The legendmigrationmay have
followed the migrationof the disease.
SCANDINAVIAN
PLAGUE LEGENDS provide
an ideal opportunity
for the study
of legend migration and variation. The differences between legends from
country to country suggest not only different cultural biases, but also different
areas of disease provenance. While, with the passage of time, legends have become sufficiently commingled to exclude any clear-cut relationship between
types and areas, the concentration of specific types in particular areas suggests
that some legends were more common to certain areas than others. More frequently found legends may be more indigenous to a specific area. As the
plague migrated from country to country, so too did legends concerning its
origins, appearance and aftermath. Each specific area throughout Scandinavia
incorporated these legends into its extant legend tradition and modified them
to account for local geographic and community features. Each area seems to
have built its legends on the legends of countries with whom it had the greatest
contact and already were infected by the plague. The legend migration, in
short, seems to have followed the path of disease migration. The widely differing types of plague legends found in the various Scandinavian countries bear
testimony to this assertion.
Reidar Christiansen mentions four types of plague legends-7080, Plague
in the shape of an old hag passing from district to district with a rake and/or
broom; 7085, Plague hag ferried across river; 7090, boy and girl survivors;
7095, discovery of deserted house or church (Christiansen 1938, 1977:214Timothy R. Tangherlini is a graduatestudent, Department of Scandinavian,
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.
Plague Legend Migration
177
215). These are certainly the most common types of plague legends. Nevertheless, a great many legends fall outside the bounds of these fairly limited
types. Therefore, to this list should be added: 7080b, Plague as couple, young
or old, with rake, shovel, broom and/or scythe; 7081, Plague as animal; 7082,
Plague as fog, cloud, mist or flame; 7083, Plague arrives on foreign ship; 7086,
Plague imprisoned or bound; 7087, tricking the plague; 7090b, old woman/
man survivors; and 7091, buried alive to stop the plague.
Obviously, the "Black Death" of 1347-50 was the kind of thing legends are
made of. The plague pandemic in Europe was the single most catastrophic
ecological crisis in European history (Heillener 1967:IV, 5). A larger percentage of the population died during this short period than in either of the two
world wars (Renouard 1948:459). Pestilence exists in tradition throughout the
world as a major motif-one need look no farther than the Bible or the Iliad
of Homer to find allusions to terrible pestilence.1 However, the remarkable
aspect of the "Black Death" was that it affected all of Europe, the Near East,
and North Africa within a short time period, and it happened in the historical
past.
The plague was caused by the bacillus Yersiniapestis, transmitted to humans
from the fleas Xenopsylla cheopis and Pulex irritans (Gottfried 1983:8-9). The
plague was also spread through person-to-person contact. The disease came
from the Far East and had two common forms, bubonic and pneumonic, as
well as a rare third form, septicaemic (Gottfried 1983:8). It followed the major
trade routes west, and reached the port of Caffa in Crimea in 1345.2 From there
it spread to the eastern ports of the Mediterranean sea, arriving in Constantinople in 1347. Constantinople provided an easy venue for a quicker and wider
dispersal of the disease, as the flea was particularly attached to the rat, Rattus
rattus,which often infested the large coastal towns and the merchant ships. The
first port of call for the plague was the city of Messina (October 1347) and later
Genova and Marseille. From Marseille it traveled west and north, reaching
Paris in the spring of 1348 and Bordeaux in the fall of that same year. From
Paris it moved steadily north through Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, Brussels, and
finally Holland, where the morbidity was so high that land reclamation halted
along the Zuider Zee (Blockmans 1980:833-863). The plague journeyed from
western France into southeastern England, where it moved along the coast,
reaching London in autumn 1348. From Genoa it moved north to Milan, a
great trading hub. It traveled north and west through Switzerland and Austria
and up into Germany through Basel, Frankfurt, K6ln, and Bremen. Mortality
figures for Bremen suggest that the city suffered a rate between 40 and 50%
(Heillener 1967:IV, 7). Bremen was a major city of the Hanseatic league and
provided routes to both the Netherlands and southern Jutland (Dollinger
1970).
Mortality during the plague was exceptionally high. Although one should
approach the grossly exaggerated legend accounts with caution (some of them
suggest rates as high as 90%), there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that
178
Journal of American Folklore
(101,1988
mortality was higher than 25% (Renouard 1948:459). Because of the peculiarities of the disease and its transmission, some communities were much harder
hit than others. The words of See provide a good appraisal of demographic
research for the plague: "Nous n'en savons rien, et nous n'en pouvons rien
savoir" (Heillener 1967:IV, 1). If the great plague epidemic of 1710 can be
taken as a poor substitute for the medieval pandemic, then the mortality of
Copenhagen would have been approximately 33% (Heillener 1967:IV, 60). As
a city, Copenhagen would have had a higher mortality than the countryside,
due to the easy spread of the disease in close and unsanitary quarters. Still, it
is reasonable to assume that mortality in Scandinavia during the plague pandemic was in the range of 25%. One out of every four people died within three
years.
The path of the plague into Scandinavia is essentially unknown. While historians often cite evidence of an English ship drifting into Bergen carrying a
dead, plague-infested crew, this evidence is nothing more than a popular legend.
I gamla tider har pesten vandret omkring i landet. Nar han f6rst kom hit, sa anlande han fran
England ofver Norge. Han hade lyckats komma ombord pa ett skepp, som lastade hampa i en
engelsk hamn. Nar skeppet kom till sjoss krop pesten fram ur hamplasten och d6yde besannangen. Skeppet drefi land vid Bergen i Norge. Folk packade sig omkring skeppet som hade drifvit
in fran hafvet. Men de hade ej l1 da lnge f6rr an den ena f6ll d6d ned efter den andra. Pesten
harjade f6rst i trakten omkring Bergen. [ULMA 97561
In the old days the plague wandered around the country. When he first came here, he came from
England via Norway. He had managed to get aboard a ship which was loading hemp in an English port. When the ship put to sea, the plague crept out of the cargo and the entire crew died.
The ship drifted ashore in Bergen in Norway. People packed themselves around the ship which
had drifted in from the sea. But they had not lain there long before the one fell down dead after
the other. The plague ravaged the area around Bergen first.
Anyone who has ever sailed into Bergensfjord will realize the extreme unlikelihood of a desolate ship making its way to Bergen. Bergen is simply not the
type of city where a ship strands. The trade routes passing to Bergen came
from both England and Denmark (Figure 1). Rather than the dramatic drifting
desolate ship, the plague probably arrived in Norway (and not necessarily Bergen) on a normal trading vessel, as it did for most of Europe. Or, a ship may
have stranded along a more open stretch of the Norwegian coast, as another
Swedish legend recounts.
Om farsotens b6rjan berattas hir . . . samma episod som ar av historien fastslagna, att det strandade ett skepp nanstans pa norska kusten. [ULMA 84551
It is told here about the arrival of the plague . . . the same episode which is given in history, that
a ship stranded somewhere along the Norwegian coast.
The drifting ship motif also exists in Denmark and is centered in more believable areas. In Kristensen's collection (1980), there are five legends of this type
Tangherlini)
179
Figure 1. Distribution of ML7083 Legends in Continental Scandinavia.
(ML7083), and Thiele (1968) adds two more. Table 1 and Figure 1 illustrate
the legend type distribution. The legends concerning Copenhagen and Randers do not suggest a ship wreck, but rather the transport of plague by a trading vessel. In half of the legends, a religious figure, either a priest or bishop, is
the first to die or the agent of initial infection. Religious figures are liminal and
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(101, 1988
Table 1. Plague Arrives on Ship-ML7083.
Collection
Legendprovenance
Location of ship
Provenanceof ship
Hassing
Dollerup/Sj0rring
Kjelstrup
Sj0rring
Sjorring
Ty
Vesterhavet
Randers
Antwerp
not given
England
Kristensen 1980:1678
Thiele 1968:II, 49
Thiele 1968:II, 51
ULMA 9756
ULMA 8455
Wessmann 1928:1447.A
Wessmann 1928:1447.B
Tapdrup
not given
not given
Wessmann 1928:1447.C
Save 1959:306
Kansj6rr
Garda
Mollerup
Lappmark
Bodsjo
Sodrik
Linkulla
Vendsyssel
Copenhagen
Bergen
Norway
Sodrik
Hylta
Kansjorr
Austrb6i
"foreign"
not given
England
not given
England
England
Sweden
not given
not given
not given
often play a negative role in folk belief. Johnsson (1917:39) points out that Dollerup, Sj0rring, Thy, and Vendsyssel are all areas open to the North Sea and
the sites of frequent strandings. In fact, all of these coastal towns lie along frequently traveled Hanseatic trade routes, especially those routes originating in
Lynn and Hull, England. In all of the legends, a foreign ship is beached or
stranded offshore. The townspeople either plunder the ship, thereby bringing
the plague to shore, or an infected person comes ashore. Excerpts from Danish
legends read as follows:
Sa flyver Vestboernejo ned til det og skulde fange noget, som ogsa de gjorde, for der var en stor
ladning pa skibet, men alle folkene var uddode . . . det varede ikke svxr laenge, inden de allesammen blev syge. [Kristensen 1980:1681]
The Vestbos fly down to it to get something, and this they did, as there was a large cargo aboard
the ship, but all the people were dead . . . it wasn't too long at all before they all became ill.
Af mandskabet var de fleste dode, men nogle kom dog levende i land, der iblandt en biskop fra
England. [Kristensen 1980:1680]
Of the crew, most were dead, but some came to shore alive, among them a bishop from England.
The plague appears nearly simultaneously in Denmark and Norway in the fall
of 1349 (Gottfried 1983:57; Johnsson 1917:41). In all likelihood, the plague
came to both countries via boat from England. In Denmark, the plague also
While
arrived from the south through the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein.
the Norwegian account of a stranded ship in Bergen seems ludicrous, the Danish accounts are certainly believable. The Norwegian legend should be considered a later variant of a Danish legend. The Swedish and the Finno-Swedish
versions of this legend should also be considered as migrating from Denmark.
A typical excerpt from a Finno-Swedish legend reads,
Tangherlini)
181
En gang kom ett skepp, dirr alla voro d6da, och stannade nagonstades vid kusten. Folk begav
sig till skeppet och traffade dar pa liken, som alla varo svarta, och begrovo de d6da samt togo
lasten. Salunda blev de nedsmittade, och strax darefter borjade folk d6 i stora hopar. [Wessmann
1928:1447.A]
One time, a ship came on which all the people were dead, and it stranded somewhere along the
coast. People went to the ship and found the bodies there, all of which were black, and they
buried the dead and took the cargo. In this way, they were infected, and immediately thereafter
people began dying in great numbers.
The legend accurately reflects the quick spread of the disease along the shipping routes. An amusing reborrowing of the legend may be found in the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, which mentions that in 1618, a ship from
Norway entered Dunbar harbor with "some infection of the pest on board."
(Shrewsbury 1970:313).
The plague spread slowly overland eastward across Denmark and reached
its apex in 1350. Meanwhile, the plague moved from town to town in Norway, ravaging the population. Its spread was probably more haphazard in
Norway than Denmark because of the reliance on multitudinous water routes
rather than the firmly established overland routes in Denmark (Stokker
1986:331). As late as 1350, the plague had not reached Sweden, an attestation
to the relatively slow spread of the plague over land. Magnus II, King of Sweden, declared in 1350, "God for the sins of man has struck the world with this
great punishment of sudden death. By it most of the people in the land are
dead. It is now ravaging in Norway and Holland, and approaching our kingdom of Sweden" (Gasquet 1908:78). By the end of 1350 the plague was doing
quite well in all of Scandinavia and its trading partners. Iceland, behind the
current continental trends as usual, was not infected by the plague until 1402
(Simpson 1972:162). However, when the plague reached Iceland, it raged, and
mortality was exceptionally high. The plague probably came to Iceland
through Norway, its main trading partner. Often mortality figures of over
40% are given for Iceland (Gottfried 1983:58).
Because of its migratory nature, the plague provides a perfect opportunity
for the study of the dispersal of legends throughout Scandinavia and the adaptation of the legend traditions by each distinct folk group for its own uses.
Legends concerning high mortality are found throughout Europe and Scandinavia. This is not surprising, as thoughts of the exceptionally high mortality
must have been omnipresent. These legends commonly focus on the survival
of an old woman (ML7090b) or a single man who finds a single woman and
their ensuing marriage and fertility (ML7090). In Kristensen's collection
(1980), one finds 54 legends of this type (ML7090 and 7090b). Commonly,
they take the form:
Da pesten gik over landet, var der ikke uden et par folk tilbage her i sognet og et par folk i Saltum.
[Kristensen 1980:1713]
When the plague went over the country, there was nobody left except for a couple of people here
in the parish and a couple in Saltum.
182
(101, 1988
Efter pesten var kun 6t menneske tilbage i Valsgardsogn, og det var en pige. Det var for resten
den eneste levende norden fjorden. Sa gik hun og rabte og fik at hore, at en karl rabte lige sadan
sonden fjorden. De flyt sa sammen og blev gifte. [Kristensen 1980:1748]
After the plague, there was only one person left in Valsgard parish, and that was a girl. She was
the only living person on the northern side of the fjord. She went and cried out, and heard that
a man yelled the same way from the southern side of the fjord. They moved in together and were
married.
From Norway:
I J0rgensfjord uddode alt folket med Undtagelesen af en Qvinde, Jorund, efter hvem Prestegjeldet siden skal have faaet sit Navn. [Faye 1948:129]
In J0rgensfjord all of the people died except for a woman, Jorund, after whom the parish supposedly is named.
I Gravens Prestegjeld levendes alene en Gut og en Pige, som giftede sig og satte Bo paa Nesheim.
[Faye 1948:130]
In Gravens parish only a boy and a girl survived, who got married and settled at Nesheim.
From Sweden, common legends take the form,
I Kleva bodde tva gamla toser. For att undga Svarta doden byggde de sig en stuga i Parkedalen
langt uppe i fJallet. [1 April 1918:120]
In Kleva lived two old maids. To avoid the Black Death, they built a hut in Parkedalen, way up
in the mountains.
Bara tva levde kvar, och de bodde langt i s6r. Det var "t6s a pelt." De skulle ga upp pa ett berg
"a rapa a huja" (hojta). Da svarade den andra, och sa fanns det ett stalle, som hette Rophult, och
ett, som hette Svarhult. [1 April 1918:1201
Only two survived there, and they lived long to the south. It was a girl and a boy. They should
go up on a mountain and yell and shout. Then one answered the other, and so there was a place
called Rophult and another one called Svarhult.
The ML7090 legends often mention bell ringing and fire burning as a means
for finding survivors. Johnsson believes that the accounts of bell ringing and
fire burning to attract other survivors are based on historical fact Johnsson
1917:46-47). However, given the above estimates of mortality, it seems unlikely that only one couple would survive in an entire district. More acceptable
is the idea of a small group of survivors carrying out these practices not so
much as to find other survivors, but rather to reestablish broken lines of communication. The bell ringing could also be related to the vast number of
deaths-the church rang its bells at a burial. Or the bell ringing could be a
reflex of the legends in which bells are rung to help lost people find their way
back to the town (particularly common in Norway and Sweden). The fire
burning could be related to the folk belief that fire and/or smoke could destroy
Tangherlini)
183
or prevent the plague. From Norway comes the legend of a couple who burn
the plague children inside their house:
Da mann og kona h0yrde det, sa skyna dei kva gjester dei hadde fatt. Og dei var sa redde, at dei
satte eld pa husa. [Strompdal 1929:171]
When the man and his wife heard that, they realized what kind of guests they had. And they were
so angry, that they lit the house on fire.
From Denmark comes a legend of a woman who is protected from the plague
by smoking a pipe:
Hun havde kjort alle de d0de hen og havde kun et og at kjore dem med, men hun blev ikke syg,
for det hun r6gte afen kridpibe. [Kristensen 1980:1729]
She had driven all the dead [to the cemetery] and had only one jade to drive them with, but she
did not get sick, because she smoked a chalk pipe.
ML7090ab legends primarily address the effect of plague on fertility. In
many cases, the surviving figure is a liminal one, devoid of any fertility function in the community, "I pestens tid var alle folk dode ud her sa naer som to
gamle kjaellinger" [During the plague, all the people died in this area except
two old women] (Kristensen 1980:1732). Heillener mentions the impact of the
plague on fertility and the decline in the number of births during and immediately after the plague (1967:3-20). It is noteworthy that pregnant women
were at a great risk of dying or aborting due to the increased stress on the
immune system exerted by the disease (Heillener 1967:11). The population of
Scandinavia took well over a century to recover from the ravages of the plague, and Norway's population did not recover until well into the 17th century.
Plague especially targeted the liminal groups found in the first type of these
legends (ML7090b), namely the young, the old, the infirm, and women. In
these legends, the district is reduced to a barren state, symbolized either by the
postmenopausal women or the prepubescent children. In either case, these survivors cannot reproduce. The second type of legend (ML7090a) seems to build
on legends similar to the Old Testament account of Noah and the Great Flood.
Noah and his wife, along with his sons and their wives, are expected to repopulate the world. These legends underscore both the need for and the difficulty of increasing the depleted populace. During the search for the mate, the
young man/woman often has to rely on the church bells to locate the other, a
symbolic appeal to God.
In an agrarian society, manpower was essential to the success of the economy. The inability to reproduce, or difficulty in reproducing suggested by the
search for the mate, was tantamount to economic ruin. Agrarian work is labor
intensive. In Scandinavia, farms were dependent on large families and young
unwed men (ungkarl). The continuation of the farm required the sons to marry
and raise large families. However, the age of marriage could not be too young,
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(101,1988
or it would encroach on the important ungkarllabor pool. The high mortality
among young children and women severely damaged the process. One of the
results was a lower average age of marriage (occasionally reflected in these legends), which further hurt the farming system. The continued depletion of the
Scandinavian populations bears witness to the breakdown in this system. Disease was much more detrimental to this system than poor harvests and famines. In a discussion on the effects of disease versus poor harvest on mortality
in a Scandinavian agrarian society (Finland), Jutikalla and Kauppinen offer
convincing proof that poor harvests were not a major factor in raising the
death rate. Their findings show that all years in which the death rate was substantially higher than normal came during years of epidemic and not famine
(1971:273-286).
Another group of plague legends concerns live burial of people to stop the
plague. This subject was treated in depth by Hauge (1965) and also mentioned
by Tillhagen (1967:215-230). The legend type seems to be linked to a larger
cycle of legends that concern preventative measures to halt the advance of the
plague. The use of fire and smoke as prophylaxis against the plague was discussed above. Tillhagen argues convincingly that live burial probably did exist
as a means to fend off the plague (1967:217). The belief was that the plague
spirit would be unable to escape from the victim before he or she was completely buried, at which point the plague would be entombed in the ground.
The loss of one or two peripheral figures would be worth the inhumanity if it
meant an end to plague. The people buried are, in all accounts, either women
or children. In one legend, the children buried are orphans:
Under den stora pesten dog manga manniskorhar i socknen. Pesten stoppadesi en by som heter
Gravamala.Det tillgick sa, att man gravde ner ett par levende barnijorden. Vilkens dessa barn
voro visste ingen.Derasforaldrarhadedott i pestan, och de vandradefrangardtil gardoch tiggde
mat. [Tillhagen1967:223]
During the greatplague, many people died here in the parish.The plaguewas stoppedin a town
calledGravamala.It happenedbecausethey burieda pairof live childrenin the ground. Nobody
knew whose children these were. Their parentshad died from the plague, and they wandered
from farm to farm and begged for food.
From Posen comes the account of a girl buried alive:
Als der Grabfertig war, befahleer dem Madchenhineinzusteigen,damit er sehe, ob es auch tief
genung sei. Das Madchentat, wie ihm befohlen;sobald es aberin dem Grabewar, lie, sich der
Schulzeden Spatenreichenund vershiittetedas im GrabebefindlicheMadchen mit der aufgeschiittetenErde .... Vom nachstenTage ab erkranktekeine Person mehr im Dorf, die Pest war
gewichen. [Knoop 1893:XL, 7]
When the grave was finished, they told the girl to get into it to see if it was deep enough. The
girl did as they asked; however, when she got into the grave, they reachedfor the spade and
buriedthe girl alive in the grave with the heapedup dirt .... From the next day on, no people
in the town got sick, and the plague had disappeared.
Tangherlini)
185
This is remarkably similar to the Danish version:
I den ostlig ende afkirkegarden pa Fur i Limfjorden ma der ikke begraves nogen, for da den sorte
d0d rasede der pa 0en, matte man begrave et levende barn her, for at smitten skulle standse.
[Thiele 1968:II, 53]
In the eastern end of the cemetery on Fur in the Limfjord one may not bury anyone because when
the plague raged on the island, they had to bury a living child there to stop the disease.
The thought of trapping the plague in a hole or locking it up is found throughout Scandinavia and Europe. From Riigen comes the account:
Ein Mann sah einmal die Pest, "wie einen knauel blauen Dunst" hinein in ein Loch im Pfosten
eines Thorwegs fliegen. Sogleich nahm er einen Pflock und schlug ihn in die Hohlung. Als er
nun nachJahren wieder an den Pfosten herantrat, sagte er: "Ich sperrte dort einmal einen Boser
hinein, ich mochte doch wissen, ob er noch darinnen ist," und zog den Pflock aus dem Loche.
Da fuhr die Pest heraus, ihm gerade in den Mund, so dap er auf der Stelle tot zur Erde stiirzte.
[ahn 1886:#47]
A man saw the plague once as a "small, bluish mist" fly into a hole in a doorjamb. So he took a
plug and put it into the hole. Years later, he got near the doorjamb again, and he said, "I trapped
a devil in there once, and I would like to know if it is still in there," and he took the plug out of
the hole. Then the plague flew out, right into the man's mouth, so that he died right there on the
spot.
This is similar to a Norwegian legend:
I gamle dage gik Pesten eller Rokka omkring i Solor og bragte vekselvis riven og limen. ...
Manden fulgte henne da til en lave og todde henne et navarshul i veggen. "Jeg har hort du skal
arke gjore dig sa liden du vil; men kan du smyge ind her?" sa han. Jo, Rokka skrumped sig ihop,
sa hun blev liden som en mus og kr6b ind i hullet . . . og da tog manden en plugg op av lommen
og slog i hullet. Siden laeste han en sentense ud av svartebogen, og da sad Rokka sa fast, at hun
hverken kunde bryde eller bore sig ud, og der sidder hun den dag idag. [Kvideland 19]
In the old days, the plague or Rokka went around in Solor and brought either a rake or a
broom....
A man followed her to a barn and drilled an augerhole in the wall for her. "I've
heard that you can make yourself as small as you will; but can you creep in here?" he said. Yes,
Rokka shrunk herself together, so she became as small as a mouse and crept into the hole . . . and
then the man took a plug out of his pocket and banged it into the hole. Then he read a sentence
out of the black book, and then Rokka was stuck so tightly in the hole that she could neither
break out nor tunnel out, and she sits there still today.
Another belief concerning the plague was that it was unable to cross barriers, especially water or ditches. From Tempelburg in Pommern comes the
account of the plague leaving a man's shoulder because he jumps into the
water:
Ein Arbeiter ging auf dem Fupsteig am Ufer der Oder, als iiber die Wiese hin die Pest wie ein
langer, schmaler Nebelstreif auf ihn zugeflogen kam und sich ihm auf die Schultern legte. Zu
186
Journal of AmericanFolklore
(101, 1988
seiner Angst wusste er sich keinen besseren Rat, als in das Wasser zu springen. Und das halfauch,
die Pest scheute vor dem kalten Bade zuriick und verliess den Mann. [ahn 1886:#48]
A worker went on the footpath along the shore of the Oder, while over the meadow the plague
came flying as a long, narrow streak of mist and laid itself on his shoulder. In his fear, he could
think of nothing better to do than to jump in the water. And that helped too, because the plague
jumped back from the cold bath and left the man.
In popular belief, the plague was unable to cross water. The ML7085 legends
use this inability as their basic premise. Other natural barriers existed as well.
Swedish legends often mention walls erected to prevent the spread of plague.
I slutet pa 1700 tallet harjade en svar pest i Gamlakarleby. De d6da begrav man i Katarina kyrkogard, kring vilka uppfordes en stenmur forr at hindra pesten att sprida sig. [Wessman
1928:1474c]
In the end of the 1700s a terrible plague raged in Gamlakerby. They buried the dead in Katrina
cemetery, around which a stone wall was erected to hinder the spread of the plague.
This mirrors the east European legends of ploughing a furrow to prevent the
spread of plague. An interesting connection exists between these ploughing
legends and the Scandinavian buried alive legends. The people forced to pull
the plough are often the same class of people who are buried alive. The end
result in both cases is death of the victim, but salvation from plague for the
community. Barriers in Norway occasionally share the motif of killing a living
person to halt the plague:
Da denne gysjelige farsotti kom herjende upp etter dalen . . . drap ein sakeslauss ung mann med
kniv og la liket tvers over vegen i soknedelet millom Gol og Al. Over liket av denne skuldlause
mannen kunne farsotti ikkje koma . . . [Kvideland 20]
When that gruesome epidemic came harrying up the valley . . . an innocent young man was
killed with a knife and they lay the body across the road in the part of the parish between Gol
and Al. The epidemic could not come over the body of the innocent man.
Another legend relates the use of consecrated earth as a barrier to the plague's
advance:
Sotti rasa over heile bygdi. . . . Paa Rauland klara heile huslyden seg. Mannen hadda henta mold
fraa kyrkjegarden og st6ydd rundt stogo si. [Kvideland 15]
The plague raged over the entire village . . . In Rauland the entire household survived. The man
had brought dirt from the cemetery and spread it around his house path.
The legend is reminiscent of the Danish legends in which a priest is successful
in halting the spread of the plague.
The foreign often play the role of the unexpected or the otherworldly in
legends. It is not surprising, then, that plague legends exist in all of the Scandinavian countries in which the plague takes the form of a foreign animal
Tangherlini)
187
(ML7081). Legends of this type are found throughout Europe. Usually, the
animal embodying the plague is a normal farm animal. The use of it as a plague
personification underscores the breakdown of community fertility during the
plague-the function of the animal is no longer to bring food, but death.
Thiele includes the following legend in his collection:
Her var en flok unge mennesker samlet i en lade, hvor de forn0jede sig hele natten med spil og
dans. Da kom der pludselig et ildhjul ind i laden, og da man sa nxmere til, var det en buk pa tre
ben, der hoppede omkring, og de kaldte den Hel. Men den naeste morgen var en del afgaesterne
syge og herfra bredte sygdommen sig videre over hele landet, og da denne dod ogsa lod sig se i
skikkelse afen hvid hest, kunne man folge dens vej fra den ene by til den anden. [Thiele 1968:II,
50]
Here a group of young people were gathered in a barn, where they enjoyed themselves the whole
night with game and dance. Suddenly, a fire wheel came into the barn, and when one looked
closer at it, it was a three-legged goat which hopped around, and they called it Hel. But the next
morning, a number of the guests were ill and from here the disease spread over the entire country, and as this death also let itself be seen in the shape of a white horse, one could follow its path
from one town to another.
The narrative exhibits the plague in two animal forms and emphasizes the folk
awareness of the migratory nature of the disease. The white horse is unusual
enough to draw attention and act as a plague personification. White horses are
often used in Swedish legend in conjunction with the nack. Horses played a
central role on the Scandinavian farm as a means for transportation-the vital
link between communities. The three-legged goat is also an unusual version
of a common farm animal. Goats are often related to the devil in Scandinavian
legend tradition. The use of the goat thus exhibits two sides. First, it is an
inversion of the normal fertility function of the farm animal. Second, it implies
a connection to the devil. The connection is underscored by the reference to
the goat as Hel. The plague often takes the appearance of a farm animal. Indirect allusion to the plague as animal often occurs, such as, "sorte dod begyndte at grassere i Norge" [the black plague began to graze in Norway] (Faye
1948:127). However, the plague is not limited to farm animal form. Arill's
collection contains the following account:
Nar svarta d0den (digerdoden) gick, sa var orsacken, att ett underligt djur gick genom landet.
Det var ingen manniska, som hade sett det forr. Var det djuret angick fram, dar svartnade manniskorna och f6ll ner och dog. [Arill 1918:126]
When the black death (plague) went, the reason was because a strange animal went through the
country. Nobody had ever seen it before. Wherever the animal went by, the people turned black
and fell down dead.
The plague is also often brought by a foreigner to the community. Rather
than acting as a personification of the plague, these foreigners are the cause of
infection. Often, they are men. Men were the main traders and travelers in
188
(101, 1988
Scandinavia, and thus the main sources of contagion. The plague carrier is usually a merchant. Occasionally, a nationality is attached to the wanderer. In
Sweden, the foreigner is a Finn; conversely, in Finland, the foreigner is a
Swede. (Table 2 illustrates the distribution and form of these legends.)
Legends also exist in Scandinavia concerning plague portents. Most of the
plague portents are either women or small children. Legends of this type are
found throughout Europe. An account from Germany tells of a woman in
white who says the plague will arrive to punish people for dancing the polka
too much. This hearkens back to Thiele's account of the three-legged goat and
the young people dancing in the barn (1968:II, 50). Plague portents often mention that the plague would arrive as a form of punishment for people's moral
transgressions. A Danish legend recounts the discovery of a baby in a haystack, who tells of the impending arrival of the disease:
En morgen kort efter solopgang pa den fjerde sondag efter trinitatis hendte det, at en kvinde, der
skulle ud for at mxlke, tydeligt horte en stemme synge salmen, "Nu bede vi den Helligand," og
da hun sa sig om, fandt hun midt i kornet et dejligt barn, der var kladt i hvid skjorte, og barnet
sagde til hende, at hun ikke skulle frygte for sit liv, men for menneskes ondskabs skyld skulle
der forst falde sygdom og dod over oen ... Derefter indfandt den sorte Dod sig. [Thiele
1968:II, 53]
One morning, a little after sunrise on the fourth Sunday after Trinity, it happened that a woman,
who was going out to milk, clearly heard a voice singing the hymn, "Now we pray to the Holy
Spirit," and when she looked around, she found a wonderful child in the middle of the grain clad
in a white shirt, and the child said to her that she should not fear for her life, but because of man's
evilness, disease and death would fall over the island ... Soon after the Black Death came.
Once again, fertility symbols abound in a nonfertile situation.
Lindow (1973) summarizes the different personifications of the plague in
Scandinavian legends and offers some interesting insights into the mechanisms
at work in the legend composition. Tillhagen (1967) also cites examples of
Table 2. Continental Scandinavia-Plague
Brought by Foreigner.
Collection
Legendprovenance Foreigner
Thiele 1968:49
Hassing
Sj6rring
Logum
Ringe
Ulstrup
Salbo
Faye 1948:134
Wessman 1928:1477
Save 1959:304
Save 1959:306
Kvideland 19
Karpi
not given
Austrbiii
not given
Bishop from Antwerp
Bishop from England
enemy troops
four men
wandering man
Finn
Swede
child
seaman
Finn
Tangherlini)
189
plague personifications, focusing primarily on Sweden. Both of these studies
place primary emphasis on legends of the type ML7080, 7080b, and 7085.
They mention the legends ML7081, although neither discusses these legends
in detail. Legends of the type ML7082 are essentially ignored.3 Remarkably,
inverse emphasis on legend types can be found inJohnsson (1917). The reason
for this is the geographic area focus of the articles in question. While Lindow
and Tillhagen concern themselves primarily with Sweden and Norway,
Johnsson limits his discussion exclusively to Denmark. The emphasis on different legend types due to geographic area reveals an interesting fact-while
the plague is almost always anthropomorphized in Sweden and Norway, it
nearly exclusively appears as a cloud or fog in Denmark.
The arrival of plague in Denmark is linked predominantly to fogs, mists,
and clouds. Kristensen's collection includes six legends that mention fog or
clouds specifically and four legends in which language indicative of this form
is used. Words such as drivende(drifting) imply the presence of a cloud or fog,
even if the specific item is not mentioned. Legends of this type are also found
along the western coast of Norway, specifically near Bergen and Kristiansand.
Table 3 and Figure 2 summarize the distribution of the legend type. The appearance of the plague as a fog or cloud is popular throughout Europe, but it
seems to be particularly common in Austria and Germany. In Austrian legend,
the plague often appears in the form of the Pest Jungfrau, who flew over the
land, enveloped in a blue flame (Crawfurd 1968:125). Here, two elements are
present-an anthropomorphic figure and a cloudlike embodiment. The fact
that the plague is a virgin, a woman who does not bear children, underscores
Table 3. Plague as Fog, Mist or Cloud-ML7082a.
Collection
Legendprovenance Allusion
Form
Kvideland 1
Kvideland 2
Kvideland 3
Bergstrand 1949:180
Bergstrand 1949:181
Hassing
R6dding
Ulvborg
specific
specific
specific
Vrendrup
Sjellerup
not given
Gudrum
specific
specific
specific
fog
cloud
black cloud
shadow
blue sheet
mist
dark fog
"drev ind over landet"
(see 1685)
Mollerup
Roding
Nautrup
Nygard
Aaseral
Setesdal
Balestrand
Rolfstorp
Idala
specific
implicit
implicit
implicit
implicit
specific
specific
specific
specific
specific
"kom drivende"
"gaet over landet"
fog
fog
cloud
flying rod
red cloth
190
Journal ofAmerican Folklore
(101,1988
the negative fertility value of the plague. Pestilence had been attributed to a
blue flame for hundreds of years prior to the Black Death. An account from
Rheims in A.D. 937 describes the pestilence as a blue flame in the sky (Handworterbuchdes deutchenAberglaubens 1927:VI, 1502). As the plague migrated
north and west, the two aspects of the plague received varying emphasis. By
Tangherlini)
191
the time the legends reached northern Germany, emphasis had shifted completely to the blue flame/cloud aspect. From Riigen comes the account of the
plague as "ein knauel blauer Dunst" [a bundled blue vapor] Jahn 1886:#47).
In Tempelburg, the plague takes the form of "ein langer, schmaler Nebelstreif' [a long, narrow streak of mist] (ahn 1886:#48). In Thiiringen, the plague is described as "ein kleiner blauer Dunst" [a small blue vapor] (Sommer
1846:#63). Moving further north to the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein, the
plague takes on the following appearances:
As in olen linden in uns Lant de Swarte Doet vael Minschen iimt Leben br6ch unn ok in unse
Regent vale unn gansse d6rper vetstarwen daen, do seeg man eenmael enen swarten Nawel retit
Norosten baem in de Luft op Grammdorp tokam'n. [Miillenhof 1845:#329]
During the Black Death, many people died and in our regency entire households and whole
villages died out, and once one saw a black mist come through the air from the northeast to
Grammdorp.
Anno 1345 regnete es Feuer vom himmel iiber das Meer gleich wie Schneewolken; das war so
hissig und verzchrend, alle Leute, die den Rauch sahen, lebten nur einen halben Tag, die Leute
aber, die beruhrt waren auf dem Meer, wo die hinkamen, da starb alles Volk und alle, die sie
sahen. [Miillenhof 1845:#580]
In 1345, fire rained from the sky over the sea as well as snow clouds; it was so fierce and frightening that all of the people who saw the smoke lived no longer than half a day; however, those
people who were touched by the water when they came near it died as did all whom they saw.
There is no trace of an anthropomorphic representation of the plague in these
legends.
In many of the Danish ML7082 legends, a priest or other religious figure
helps to save the parish from the plague:
Folk var ved at ga ud af kirken, og sa fik prxsten 6je pa, at pesten kom drivende. Sa siger han,
at de skulde ga ad kirken igjen. Sa blev de fri. [Kristensen 1980:1685]
People were about to leave the church, and then the priest saw that the plague came drifting.
Then he says that they should go back into the church again. In this way, they were spared.
The plague arriving as a fog correlates well with the legends ML4000, soul of
sleeping person wanders on its own. In these legends, the soul is often symbolized by a fog. It is not surprising, then, that a religious figure plays an important role in the ML7082 legends. The priest was in charge of the spiritual
well-being of the community. He had to drive away evil spirits and prevent
the encroachment of the other world on this world. Furthermore, priests were
often seen as being in command of magical powers due to their extensive education and their foreign roots. The bishop in Kristensen (1980:1678) is a
higher version of the priest, perhaps used to emphasize the extreme nature of
the plague. In several of the legends, returning to the church and praying after
first sighting the plague cloud is effective in preventing the spread of the disease.
192
(101, 1988
Johnsson tries to explain the predominance of fogs and clouds in the Danish
plague legends, arguing that natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions could
cause the appearance of bizarre celestial phenomena:
En mulighed for forklaring har man i, at Skydannelser af sar og fremmed Natur ingenlunde er
ukendte, selv ikke for vor Tid. De skyldes ofte fjarne vulkanske Udbrud. ... De farvede skyer
skyldtes her, at Asken . . . foranledigede en Fortatning afVanddampene. [ohnsson 1917:43]
One possibility for explanation of strange and foreign celestial phenomena is that they are not
unknown, not even in our own time. Often, they are caused by distant volcanic eruptions ....
The colored clouds are due to the ash . . . which brings about a concentration of the atmospheric
moisture.
Throughout Europe, common belief held that the plague was caused by natural disasters, including volcanic eruption or undersea earthquakes. Gottfried
points out the belief that fissures under the sea caused the escape of some gas
that made its way in over the European continent, thereby causing the plague
(1983:111). Needless to say, there is no evidence that the time surrounding the
Black Death exhibited substantially higher numbers of geological disasters.
Johnsson admits this himself:
For at antage, at de omtalte Himmelsyn skulde have deres Aarsag i noget lignende, er der den
Hindring, at man ingen historiske Efterretninger ejer om noget vulkansk Udbrud kort for den
sorte Dods Optraden. [Johnsson 1917:44]
There is one obstacle to accepting that the discussed celestial phenomena are caused by something
of that nature [volcanic eruptions], and that is that there are no historic accounts of any volcanic
eruptions shortly before the outbreak of the Black Death.
All the accounts of celestial phenomena are highly localized and not symptomatic of phenomena accompanying geological disasters.
During the legends' northward migration, the symbol of the flame developed into a small, localized cloud or fog, whose appearance was definite and
recognizable. In some legends the blue color is preserved:
Da pesten kom, maeldte den sig ved, at der floj ligesom et blat forklade gjennem luften. [Kristensen 1980:1687]
When the plague came, something just like a blue sheet flew through the air.
A legend in Thiele's collection preserves the aspect of fire (ML7082b):
Da kom pludeselig et ildhjul ind i laden . . . den naste morgen var en del af gxsterne syge, og
herfra bredte sygdommen sig videre over hele landet. [Thiele 1968:II, 50]
Suddenly a fire wheel came into the barn . . . the next morning, a number of the guests were ill,
and from here the disease spread over the entire country.
The vast majority of the Danish legends rely on the cloud motif. Only a minority employs the flame motif.
Tangherlini)
193
ML7082 legends are not restricted to continental Europe. In a Scottish legend, the plague maintains both an anthropomorphic form and a cloud form.
It appears as a dark cloud, but later takes definite shape as a man. The man is
chased from the room of a sick woman and disappears down a hole, never to
be seen again (Briggs 1971:1I, 569-572). In another Scottish legend, the plague
appears as a blue fog, again reminiscent of Danish tradition (Briggs 1971:II,
377). The areas of plague infection for Denmark, north Germany, and the
British Isles have legends in their tradition of the same type as those predominant in the Danish tradition. The legends from the British Isles, however,
maintain the anthropomorphic form for the plague.
The Norwegian legends that deal with the appearance of the plague are predominantly of the types ML7080a, 7080b, and 7085. Only very few type 7082
legends have been collected. Legend type ML7085 presupposes an anthropomorphic form. Christiansen correctly notes that in a large number of cases the
plague appears as an old hag. Lindow adds that this hag is not a witch, but
rather a completely independent folk character (1973:87). The other common
form for the plague to take is that of two small children (ML7080b). Tillhagen
suggests that the children entered tradition through historical fact. He asserts
that, after the plague, a large number of orphans must have passed from farm
to farm begging food (1967:217). They would also have acted as agents of infection. Returning to the relation between plague, its victims, and fertility,
another plausible explanation emerges. All legends of type ML7080ab make
use of nonfertile community members as representations of the plague. The
intimate connection between fertility and economic success was shown above.
It would therefore appear that the plague, because of its dire demographic consequences, could only be represented by nonfertile members of the community-women past their childbearing years, small children, or, in one instance
(ULMA 9756), virgins. Finally, mortality was highest among the old, the
young, and women. This aspect of the plague is incorporated into the legends-those who most frequently died were the best form for a symbolic representation of the disease.
The negative fertility aspect of the plague figure is heightened by her use of
common household tools for determining the number of victims. In Christiansen's collection, one finds the following:
Der gikk pesten fra gard til gard i skikkelse av et bitte lite kvinnfolk. Hun bar alltid med sig en
liten kost, og der hvor hun gikk inn og feiet for doren, der d0de alle folkene i huset; men pa de
gardene der noen skulde live, slo hun like mange slag pa doren med kosteskaffet, som der skulde
do folk i huset. [Christiansen 1938:36]
There the plague went from farm to farm in the shape of a little tiny woman. She always carried
with her a little broom, and there where she went in and swept in front of the door, all the people
in the house died; but at those farms where some people should survive, she hit the door with
the broomhandle as many times as the number of people who would die in the house.
The plague hag can also be accompanied by an old man, often carrying a
shovel:
194
(101, 1988
Da han (pesten) gick fram med sin spade, der blev dock nagon enda menniska skonad; men der
hon gick fram med sin qvast, blev ej mors barn lefvande lemnadt. [Save 1959:#308]
When he (the plague) went forth with his shovel, some people were spared; but where she went
forth with her broom, not even a mother's child was left alive.
The household tools the plague uses are those associated with the woman's
and man's respective normal household roles. However, the function of the
tools has been inverted and, rather than maintaining the living quarters or
bringing sustenance, the tools bring death. When the plague arrives as a child
couple, the same tools are used:
Vid Ungbatels i Stanga inkom forst Pesten i sasom en flicka med qvast (der gjorde d6den rent
hus) och en gosse med spade (der han kom, lemnades nagon enda menniska qvar lefvande.) [Save
1959:#309]
At Ungbatels in Stanga, the plague first came as a girl with a broom (there death cleaned house)
and a boy with a shovel (where he came, some people remained alive).
The future roles of the children are inverted: children are usually associated
with new life, but here they are associated with death. Rather than stepping
into future roles of contributors to the community, they assume the roles of
detractors from the community.
I could find no analogues to these legends (ML7080ab) in Denmark or any
other European country. The closest image is that of the Grim Reaper, who
travels with his scythe, harvesting people. As with the ML7080ab legends, a
tool associated with life sustenance is used for life destruction. However, accounts of a Grim Reaper do not seem common in Scandinavian tradition. One
Norwegian legend makes use of the Grim Reaper figure with scythe: "Dei
saag pesten som ein mann med ein stor ljaa ridande yver vatn, berg og
dalar. . . . Der han reid fyre, fylgde pesten etter og gjorde sitt verk" [They
saw the plague as a man with a large scythe riding over the water, mountains
and valleys. . . . There where he rode by, the plague followed after and did its
work] (Kvideland 5). Predominantly, the north Scandinavian legends use an
anthropomorphic plague figure as a starting point. The accounts of single or
pair survivors act as a building block, supplying the motif of infertility. The
idea of a foreign element bringing the plague is also incorporated into these
legends as well as the wandering nature of the disease. Finally, the negative use
of household and farm tools is added to emphasize the impact on communal
fertility. The popularity of these legends bespeaks their efficiency in communicating all of the important aspects of the disease-arbitrary number of
deaths, impact on fertility, migratory nature of the disease, and its foreign
provenance. (Table 4 and Figure 3 show the wide dispersal of this type through
Norway and Sweden.)
Legends of the type ML7085 build directly on legends of the type
ML7080ab. Once again, the anthropomorphic representation of the plague is
an old woman. However, men also play this role. The ferryman who grants
195
Tangherlini)
~~~Plague
Legend Migration19
Tangherlini)
Table 4. Plague as Old Hag, Old Man, Old Pair or Child Pair-ML7O8Oab.
Collection
Legendprovenance
Type
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
Soller6n
N. Finnskoga
Resele
7080b
7080b
7080a
Resele
Dal
Dal
7080a (man)
7080a (man)
7080b
Saler6n
Mora
7080b
7080b
Tr'avad
Vdirmland
Hals
7080a (boy)
7080b
7080b
7080a
V5inge
Mora
Mora
7080a (girl)
7080a
7080a
7080a
5622
13133
68:4:t8
68:4:28
ULMA 7639
ULMA 7639
ULMA 2782:2
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
8694
14490
4697
12721:18
12721:18
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
303:708
1976
1992
425
ULMA 23019:93
ULMA 23961
ULMA 11288
ULMA 8155
ULMA 7886
Gillberga
F'agel's
V'arvik
Mora
0. Ullerud
Ving'aker
7080a
7080b
708Gb
7080b
7080b
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
11431
18504
18504
18504
Gagnef
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
ULMA
12855
9756
Boda
Asele
7080a
7080b
9756
16115
T~ivelsa's
7080b (two virgins)
7080b
7080a (man)
Strompdal 1929:IV.8
Strompdal 1929:IV.9
Faye 1948:127
Faye 1948:137
Christiansen 1938:36
Sdive 1959:304
S~ive 1959:304
Sdive 1959:305
Sdive 1959:306
Sdive 1959:306b
Sive 1959:307
Sive 1959:308
Sive 1959:309
Kvideland 4
Alga,
Helgeland
Helgeland
Gjerrestad
0icstad
Vinj e
Quie
B'ata, Fair6
not given
not given
not given
not given
Fair6
St'anga
Osterdalen
7080a (man)
7080b
7080a (man)
7080b
7080b
7080b
7080a
7080a
708Gb
708Gb
708Gb
708Gb
7080a, and 708Gb
7080a
708Gb
708Gb
7080a
196
(101, 1988
Table 4. Continued.
Collection
Legendprovenance
Type
Kvideland 5
Kvideland 6
Kvideland 16
Kvideland 19
NFS Krogh 6.31
Nordfjord
not given
7080b
7080a (man)
7080a
7080a
7080a
7080a
7080a
7080b
7080a
7080a
7080a
NFS
NFS
NFS
NFS
NFS
NFS
Krogh 21.4
Elin 3.7
Elin 3.51
Hoff3.7
Klonberg 2.2
Klonberg 2.2
NFS Klonberg 2.2
NFS Klonberg 2.3
NFS Moe 54.38
NFS 0stberg 1.38
NFS Ragnvald 10.51
NFS Delgobe 3.5
Hogsfjord
Solor
Sondre Holand
Sondre Holand
Grimsby
0ymarki
Eidsberg
Tinn
Tinn
Tinn
Tinn
Moland
Hedmark
Saltdal
Kragsmopa
7080b
7080b
7080a
7080a
7080a
7080a (man)
passage to the plague is the first to die from the disease. Often, he is granted a
quick and easy death, an obvious consolation to the otherwise painful death of
the plague. As with the ML7080ab type legends, this legend is not found in
Denmark. The closest analogue in Denmark to these legends is the plague
being brought by a foreigner or person returning from afar. Both cases involve
a journey over water,4 but none of these variants includes the essential interchange between the traveler and ferryman.5 A common example of an
ML7085 legend may be found in Faye's collection:
Paa sin vandring gjennem landet kom Pesta ogsaa til Gjerrestad. Hun var imidlertid da ei som
ellers sedvanlig ifort et rodt Skjort, men havde en blaa Stak paa. Manden paa Sandaker, som
roede hende over Gjerrestad vandet til Eskeland, blev raed, da han maerkede hvem han havde i
Baaden, og bonfaldt om at maate beholde livet i Fergelon. Pesta tog da frem en stor Bog, slog
op i den og svarede derpaa: "Livet dit kan jeg ikke spare, men en let Dod skal du faae." Aldrig
saa snart var Manden kommen hjem, forend han blev dosig. Han lagde sig derfor paa Pallen og
ded var han. [Faye 1948:127]
During her wanderings through the country, Pesta also came to Gjerrestad. She was, as usual,
wearing a red shirt, but she also had on a blue jacket. The man on Sandaker, who rowed her
across Gjerrestad water to Eskeland, got mad when he realized who he had in the boat, and
begged that he be allowed to keep his life as ferry fare. Pesta took out a large book, looked up
something in it, and answered, "I cannot save your life, but you shall have an easy death." As
soon as the man got home, he became tired. He lay down on the chimney shelf and he was dead.
The use of a large black book is reminiscent of legends concerning the use of
the Black Book (ML3020). The black book is related to priests and witches.
Tangherlini)
197
In an illiterate society, the ability to read, or "sla opp" as Pesta does, connoted
a great deal of mystical power. The terrifying aspect of these unknown books
is further emphasized in Pesta's inability to grant clemency-the name of the
victim is already written, and his fate is sealed.
Figure 3. Distribution of ML7080ab Legends in Continental Scandinavia.
198
(101, 1988
Frequently, legend type ML7085 is combined with the legends of type
ML7080ab. For example:
Da svartedauden giekk, kamm eingong ein mann til sin gard i 0vre Vefsn, sume segjer det var
Laksfors, og vilde ha skyss over elva. . . . Framandkaren som han skyssa, han fo ifra gard til
gard, og det segjast at han ha' ei riva og ein soplime med. [Strompdal 1929:IV, 8]
say that it was
During the Black Death, a man came once to his farm in 0vre Vefsn-some
The foreign man [he] rowed across,
Laksfors-and wanted to be rowed over the stream....
traveled from farm to farm, and it is said that he had a rake and a broom with him.
In another interesting account, the plague appears as two small children who
wish to be carriedover a stream. In return, they grant their carrier immunity
from the disease (Strompdahl 1929:IV, 9). The distribution and form of this
legend type may be seen in Table 5 and Figure 4. An important feature of the
legends (except Save 1959:311) is that the plague is brought over water, primarily by ship-a reflection of both the belief that water was a natural plague
barrier and the actual path of plague transmission.6 In all cases, the plague figure is a foreigner to the area. The other important aspect in these legends is the
exchange between the plague and the probable victim. The person always begs
Table 5. Plague Ferried across Water-ML7085.
Collection
Legendprovenance Plaguefigure
Fate offerryman
ULMA 68:4:18
ULMA 2121:1
ULMA 20384
ULMA 23961
Strompdal 1929:IV.8
Strompdal 1929:IV.9
Resele
not given
Strom
Langasen
Varvik
Faye 1948:127
Christiansen 1938:36-37
Save 1959:308
Save 1959:311
Kvideland 8
Kvideland 9
Kvideland 11
Moe LIII, 5-6
Moe LIV, 37
Bondevik, I, 5
BuggeIV, 136
Kl. V, 39
Kl. VII, 20
NFS Elin 3.34
NFS 54.37
NFS 0stberg 1.39
Helgeland
Helgeland
Gjerrestad
Vinje
Farr6
Isum
Fyresdal
Holvig
Rogaland
Vegarskei
Fyresdal
Sogndal
Fyresdal
R0ken
not given
Grimsby
Arnes
Hedmark
unspecified
man
man
unspecified
man
boy and girl
woman
little woman
man
man
man
Pesta
woman
woman
woman
man
man
woman
man
Pesta
woman
Pesta
spared
death
not given
easy death
spared
easy death
easy death
easy death
spared
easy death
easy death
spared
easy death
easy death
easy death
easy death
easy death
easy death
spared
easy death
spared (tricks plague)
Tangherlini)
199
for clemency, but rarely is it granted. Instead, the person is allowed an easy
death.
When the plague finally reached Iceland in 1402, a well-established legend
tradition existed in continental Scandinavia. As the Danes, Norwegians, and
Swedes earlier, the Icelanders were in a position to pick and choose legends
200
(101, 1988
that suited their needs best from the area of disease provenance. The result is
that legends of all types appear in the Icelandic tradition. Iceland was infected
through Denmark and Norway, its two main trading partners. Thus, Iceland
was exposed to two distinct legend traditions simultaneously. The Icelanders
adapted legends from both traditions to fit their landscape and extant legend
tradition, but the roots of the Icelandic tradition can easily be traced to continental Scandinavia.
The plague comes from a foreign land in many of the Icelandic plague legends. Surprisingly, no stranded ship legends have been collected in Iceland.
Perhaps the fact that Iceland is an island forced a tacit belief that the disease
arrived by ship, for everything arrived in Iceland by ship. Attributions of the
plague to the arrival of a foreigner exist. In one legend, the plague is sent to
Iceland by two Finns, a reflex to a similar Swedish legend:
pa6 er kunnugt a5 svartidau6i vi6a um lond a6ur en hann kom til Islands. Yfir lessu fylltust
Finnlendingar 6fund og sendu tvo fjolkyngismenn til Islands, karl ok kerlingu. [Arnason
1956:IV, 137]
It is known that the Black Death raged through countries before he came to Iceland. Two Finns
felt envy about this and sent two people skilled in the black arts to Iceland, an old man and an
old woman.
The Icelanders relate the arrival of plague in the land with magic and magicians. Wizards often play the same role that priests play in the continental
Scandinavian legends, namely the deterrent of the plague's advance, as in the
following legend:
?egar svartidau6i geisa6i i Islandi komst hann aldregi i Vestfjor6u bvi t6lf galdramenn vestra
t6ku sig saman og mognu6u allir sendingu a m6ti honum. En svartidau6i lag6i yfir landi6 eins
og gufa sem na6i upp i mi6jar hlf6ar og ut a mi5 fiskimi6, re6u fyrir gufunni karl er f6r me6
hli6um og kerling er f6r me6 l1ndum fram....
begar gufan og manndau6inn t6k a6 faerast
vestur eftir hof6u galdramennirnir sendingu tilb6na; var hun gra6ungr mikill fleginn ofan a6
vi6 Gilsfjor6
knjam og dr6 hann hu6ina eftir ser; hitti hann karl og kerlingu undir klettum i fj6ru
bar sem lei6ir 1eirra ur6u a6 liggja saman; sau skyygnir menn a6gang teirra ok lauk svo a6 uxinn
kom leim inn undir hiiina, lag6i lau undir og kramdi tau sundur. [Amason 1956:I, 347-348]
When the Black Death raged in Iceland, he never came to the west fjords because twelve wizards
the
got together and put all their power in a sending against him. And the Black Death lay over
land as a fog which reached up into the mountains and midway out into the fishing banks. The
fog was steered by a man who traveled in the cliffs and a woman who strode along the shore ....
When the fog and the death toll began to travel west, the wizards had the sending prepared; it
was a large bull flayed down to the knees and dragged its hide behind it; it met the old man and
the old woman under the cliffs at the shore near Gilsfjord, there where their paths were destined
to cross; men with second sight saw their meeting and it happened that the ox caught them under
the hide and lay them under and crushed them to pieces.
Nearly all of the Scandinavian plague legend types may be found in this legend. The appearance of the plague as a fog was particularly suited to the Ice-
Tangherlini)
201
landic legend tradition, as its magical counterpart, the sending, also commonly took the form of a vapor:
legar svartidau6igeisa6i yfir Island t6ku itjan galdramenn sig saman og gjor6u felag me6
ser ... enda lei6 pa ekki i l1ngu i6ur hun sa gufu m6rau6a koma inn i bxinn. . .. Sendingin . . .bregzt . .. i flugulikiog aetlastn6 a6 komast undirhendinai stilkunni upp i rumi6 til
mannsins.En ialendir hun i sau6arleggsem stulkan helt i og f6r inn i hann, en stulkan setti
tappai gati6. [Arnason1956:1,321-323]7
When the Black Death raged over Iceland, eighteen wizards got together and swore a
pact . . . and it was not long before she saw a reddishvapor come into the farmhouse. . . . The
sendingchangedinto the shapeof a fly and tried to get under the armsof the girl and up into the
man's room. But it lands on a marrow bone that the girl held up and it goes inside a hole, and
the girl sets a plug in the hole.
Interestingly, the plague vapor appears in conjunction with an anthropomorphic form. While the distinction between plague as vapor and plague as
person(s) was clearly defined in continental Scandinavia, the two types have
been commingled in this Icelandic legend. The two traditions of Denmark and
have been rejoined in the Icelandic.
Norway/Sweden
The plague also appears as a mist without anthropomorphic
accompaniment. The fog or vapor is foreign in nature, and always of uncommon appearance:
rri6jaari6 kemur borsteinnenn i kaupsta6og segir ai kaupma6ura6 n6 s6 kla6 komi6 svo gott
sem faist, kemur me6 klae6sstrangaok rullarsundur a bor6inu, en innan ur klae6isstranganum
rykurbla gufa .. [Arnason1956:IV,138]
The thirdyear, Thorsteincame to the marketplaceand the merchantsaid that now he would see
the best cloth one can get and comes with a cloth bolt and rolls it out on the table, and out from
the bolt of cloth comes a blue smoke . . .
legar svartidau6ikom i Olafsfjor6voru bar smalartveir sem hetu Teitur og Sigga. la6 var einn
morgun snemma a6 lau voru a6 smala uppi i fjtllum. Syndist l)eim pa okenniligt boku leggja
inn allan Olafsfjor6 og re6u ba6 af a6 halda ekki ofan til bygg6a fyrri en bokunni letti af. [Ar-
nason 1956:IV,138-139]
When the Black Death came to Olafsfjord, there were two shepherdsnamed Teitur and Sigga.
It was earlyone morning, while they were milking up in the mountains. It seemed to them that
an unknown fog settled in over all of Olafsfjordand they decidedthat they would not go to the
village until the fog had lifted.
ta6 er sagt a6 Helga a Grundi Eyjarfir6ihafi alltafhaldiztvi6 a fjollum uppi me6an svartidau6i
gekk yfir Eyjarfj6r6og hafi henni pa alltaf synzt Poka yfir allri bygg6inni. [Arnason 1956:IV,
139]
It is said that Helga from Grundin Eyjarfirthstayed up in the mountainswhile the Black Death
went over Eyjarfirthand it had seemed to her that a fog lay over the entire village.
The legends all seem reminiscent of the Danish legends of the same type.
202
(101,1988
The plague also appears in animal form in Iceland. The inversion of a common farm animal's function (i.e., to destroy rather than sustain life) is the basis
for these legends. One legend presents the plague as a grey cow:
legar svartidau6i var biinn a6 geisa um Nor6urland og kominn vestur a6 Hrutafja6ari var hann
i grau nautsliki og aetla6i vestur yfir og v66 ut i ana . . . [Arnason 1956:IV, 138]
The Black Death was prepared to rage through the Northland country and when he came west
to Hrutafirth, he was in the shape of a grey cow and wanted to go west over the river, and waded
out into the river ...
The cow is prevented from crossing the river by a red cow. Thus, the belief
that plague was unable to cross water appears in Icelandic tradition as well.
A type of legend that seems particular to Iceland is tricking the plague. This
type should be labeled ML7087. A Swedish legend recounts how the plague
was tricked into staying in the mountains overnight, resulting in the disease
deciding not to journey up into the mountains any longer8 but it does not rely
on the one-line trickery associated with the Icelandic legends. Like the legends
of type ML7085, these legends rely on an anthropomorphic plague figure and
play on the desire to get immunity from the disease. Unlike the ML7085 legends, the Icelandic legends are always successful in finding immunity:
legar svartidau6i gekk var ata6um dagsetursbil ao b6ndi leit ut i glugga ok var6 less var a5
eitthvao tveinnt rei6 fyrir ofan ok heyrir a6 sagt er: "Skal her heim?"-"Nei, her er gras i tuninu
sem vii megom ekki koma narri." A kenna bx kom svartidau6i ekki. [Arnason 1956:IV, 139]
When the Black Death raged, there was a farmer who, at nightfall, looked out the window and
saw that something double rode overhead and heard that one said: "Shall I visit here?"-"No,
here is the grass in the meadow which we may not get near." The Black Death did not come to
that farm.
This legend also accounts for the random striking pattern of the plague, which
allowed for some farms to remain unscathed and others to be completely depopulated.
The Icelanders made use of the other Scandinavian traditions as a basis for
their legends, but they adapted them to their own particular worldview. The
position of the priest was superseded by that of the magician or wizard. The
power of sendings, essentially unknown in continental Scandinavia, was called
upon to halt the dreaded disease. The presence of fertility symbols, men and
women, bulls and cows, was used as a means for emphasizing the negative
impact of the disease on the farming communities. The normal function of the
figures is inverted-where they would normally bring life, they bring death.
This parallels the use of these figures in the rest of Scandinavia.
Conclusion
Denmark and Norway were infected nearly simultaneously with the
plague, and therefore could not look to each other for legends. Instead, they
relied on the legends of their closest trade partners who had already been in-
Tangherlini)
203
fected. For Denmark, this was north Germany and the British Isles. For Norway, this was only the British Isles. Accordingly, the legend tradition of Denmark and Norway reflects particular aspects of the legends of those countries.
Legends did not migrate quickly from Denmark to Norway, because the
plague had to spread overland in Denmark to the main ports on Sjaelland. By
the time the plague reached Copenhagen, it had already been raging for several
months in Norway. At that point, the form of the plague in Norwegian legend
had probably been firmly established. Norway was the country of disease
provenance for Sweden and, as hypothesized, both countries exhibit markedly
similar legend traditions. Later commingling with traditions undoubtedly occurred, and certain legend types filled a need in all three countries, as in the
case of the legends ML7083, accounting for the wide distribution of such legends. Iceland was not in need of a plague tradition until one hundred years
later. Its tradition, as I noted above, exhibits aspects of both the Danish and
the Norwegian/Swedish traditions, both major trading partners.
The fog legends took hold in Denmark perhaps due to their suitability to
the landscape. One can see from one community to another because the horizon is relatively open. A drifting localized fog easily could be seen and imagined drifting over the Danish fields. Once these legends had taken hold, however, the plague did not appear in any other form. Plague legends in Denmark
always present the plague in its underlying legend form-a visible air mass.
Once this form had been established for the plague, it became difficult for
other forms to be accepted. Variation affects the form on a superficial, rather
than fundamental, level. This precludes, except to a highly peripheral degree,
the inclusion of legends in a tradition that depends on a fundamental change
in the nature of the representation, such as from fog to anthropomorphic
form.
The anthropomorphic form was better suited to the Norwegian landscape.
Fog legends appear primarily along the western coasts of Norway and Sweden.9 As the disease migrated inland, the unsuitability of a wandering fog to
the rugged landscape precipitated a predominant emphasis on anthropomorphic representations of the plague. The plague would arrive from nowhere in the shape of an old woman, an old pair, or a couple of children-in
all cases, an infertile group. The great reliance on water transportation and the
belief that plague could not cross water were conflated into the ML7085 legends. If the fog legends had been accepted into the Norwegian tradition, one
would expect to find a much wider distribution of the legends throughout
Norway and Sweden. The fact that they are extant only in areas of immediate
contact with Denmark supports my assertion that the plague could only assume one underlying form in the tradition.
Plague legends throughout Europe recognize the disease as an arbitrary, unknown, and unstoppable force. In Scandinavia, prayers to God, appeals to magicians, and live burials were the only possible means of halting the disease. In
other Scandinavian legends, doing an otherworldly being a favor often won
204
(101, 1988
their help, or at least their mercy. The Norwegian/Swedish legends about the
ferryman underscore the brutality of this particular "otherworlder." Even
when the plague appears as an animal, it is often in an unusual form. The
plague legends play on the question of fertility. When the plague is an anthropomorphic figure, that figure is never fertile-it is either too young or too old
to produce children. Scandinavia was not alone in aligning the plague with a
nonfertile representation. The Austrian Pest Jungfrau is just one example.
While the plague appears as a vapor in most of Europe, it is conspicuously
absent in this form in eastern Norway and Sweden. Remarkably, the couple
with shovel and broom does not seem to appear outside Scandinavia.
This survey of Scandinavian plague legends suggests that the legend migration followed the same routes as the disease migration-the main trade routes.
Once the disease arrived, a need existed in the tradition. The legends followed
close behind to fill this need. Once a form for the plague had been established,
other forms had difficulty entering the tradition. In Denmark, the form was
that of a fog; in Norway, that of a person. Because of these differences in underlying form, legends concerning the shape of the plague did not migrate
freely between the countries.
Notes
I would like to thank the Norske Folkeminnesamlingat the Etno-FolkloristiskInstituttin Bergen (KI.),
andat the Instituttfor Folkeminnevitskapin Oslo, Norway (NFS), the Dialekt och Folkminnesarkivetat the
Institut for Undersokning av Svenska Dialekter och Folkminnen, in Uppsala, Sweden (ULMA), and the
DanskFolkemindesamlingin Copenhagen,Denmark, for theirkind assistancein providingme with material
from theirarchives.
'For other discussions of mortality during the plague, see Gasquet (1908), Gottfried (1983), Heillener
(1967),Hirst (1953), Hoeniger (1882), Nohl (1926), and Ziegler (1969). More examplesof plaguein literature
may be found in Crawfurd(1914)and Grimm (1965).
2Thecourse the plaguefollowed is well known to the port of Messina.At that point, the dispersalbecame
remarkablywide. The path tracedhere is a combinationof the accountsfound in Gasquet(1908), Gottfried
(1983), Nohl (1926), and Ziegler (1969).
3Lindowignores these legends becausethey do not constitutea personificationof the plague.
4In turn, these legends relateto those of the type ML7083.
5Thistype seems relatedto the Eddic poem, Hdrbarslj6oi,in which b6rr, returningfromJotunheimr,is
confrontedby Harbaror,05inn disguisedas a ferryman.
6Lindowdiscussesthis phenomenonin greaterdetail.
7In this legend, it is the sending vapor, and not the plague, which is trapped.This is an interestingtwist
on the north Germanlegends in which the plague vapor is trapped.For legends of this sort, seeJahn (1886).
8Thislegend probablyhelps account for the higher mortalityalong the coast, where the spreadwas facilitated by the water commerce. As mentioned above, the overland transmissionof the plague was a slow
process. With the numerous valleys and unpassablemountain rangesin Sweden and Norway, the overland
transmissionof the diseasemust have been particularlyhindered.The legend mentionedappearsin Bergstrom
and Nordlander (1885:#30). This legend, however, seems more closely relatedto a legend in Stompdahl
(1929:111,
167-169), reprintedin Christiansen(1977), in which a Finn tricks the invading army into jumping
off of a cliff, therebysaving the wedding partyin the valley below.
9AnnaKristina-S6derborgfrom Dialekt och Folkminnesarkivetin Uppsala writes, "Thereis nothing [in
our archive]about plague as cloud, fog, mist or blue flame"[personalcorrespondence].
Tangherlini)
205
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Ships, Fogs, and Traveling Pairs: Plague Legend Migration in

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